Many of you probably saw the news about the Beltway Blockage
on July 8th in the afternoon - - some of you may have been stuck in
the traffic like I was.I had just read
IBM’s new Report, “The
Globalization of Traffic Congestion:IBM
2010 Commuter Pain Survey,” but it was little consolation knowing that
traffic delays in Moscow were on average 2.5 hours, even as I watched my
commute time inch towards the second hour.

Transportation is a key governmental function that has
enormous impact on the citizens’ well being.Traffic congestion adds stress to our lives, retards economic
development, and impacts the environment.

Performance Management is the mandate of the day for
governments, both federal and the state and local government.In the past, many government agencies would
measure performance such as the number of roads resurfaced, number of traffic
lights installed, and the number of dollars spent on transportation.These were input data elements.A more recent focus, and one that is more
meaningful to citizens, is to measure the outcomes achieved by the government
agencies.In the case of transportation,
an outcome might be the average commute time from one location to another, the
average speed on a roadway, or the volume of traffic (or persons) carried by a
road segment during the peak traffic hour.

Reporting on outcomes is but the first step.The performance achieved must be compared to
the desired quality of service (QoS).Setting of the QoS goals for transportation and other government
functions is worthy of a public debate because there are invariably tradeoffs,
the major one being how much more one is willing to pay to achieve a better
outcome.

Another step that can be done with the outcome data is to
determine trends and predict what might happen if the trends continue.We call this Predictive Analytics.We can plan the transportation infrastructure
that will be needed if Washington’s
growth continues at the current rate (except for 2008, we have grown
continuously).

Additionally, the performance data can be analyzed to find patterns.Does the QoS fall short only in certain spots
or at a certain time of day?Why is this
happening?We can build models of the
traffic flows and run simulations to allow us to ask questions such as “Would
an extra off-ramp lane prevent the exiting traffic from backing up on the
Beltway?”Or “Would running an extra
lane Southbound in the morning improve the traffic flows?”

Getting back to the recent Tractor-Trailer accident, has
anyone done any modeling and simulation of what might happen if I-495 were
blocked by an accident - - or a terrorist action?Do we have alternate routes identified?Do we have the computer systems to redirect
traffic to these alternate routes and to dynamically change the traffic
patterns on certain roads to facilitate the flow in traffic in what may be
abnormal ways?

If you’d like to voice your opinion about the traffic
situation in your city, fill in our on-line questionnaire "Traffic Survey"Disclaimer:This is not intended to be a scientific, randomized survey, and I make
no claim to its validity.However, I
will publish the results in a future blog, if we get enough interest in the
poll.

Give me your thoughts on how analytics might be used to
improve our traffic situation.Write to
me at ascdc@us.ibm.com or respond to this
blog.